Hampton Court Palace Contact information In 1514, in the parish of Hampton, Thomas Wolsey , Archbishop of York began building a magnificent palace on the north bank of the River Thames. Wolsey had water for his new palace running from Coobe Hill in Surrey through lead pipes which traveled through Surbiton to get to Hampton Court. Not much of Wolsey's original building remains due to the remodeling by Henry VIII and later kings. Part of the Great Hall are probably from Wolsey's palace, and the structure of the Base Court looks much like it did in Wolsey's time. The parts of the kitchens from the original building are also very much as they were in Wolsey's first building. Henry VIII received the palace from Wolsey in the mid to late 1520s, although the Archbishop retained apartments there, as well as at all the other royal palaces until he fell from favor and was arrested (and subsequently died before he could be executed). Henry made many additions to the palace and most of the Tudor parts we still see today were built by him. Henry enlarged and rebuilt his own apartments, parts of the kitchens, the Chapel Royal, replaced most of the Great Hall and added tennis courts.

Henry also laid out the overall plan for the gardens at Hampton Court, the basic structure of which is still seen today. The astronomical clock was made in 1540 by Nicholas Oursian and shows the hours, days of the week, days of the month, the time of high tide, the phases of the moon, the signs of the zodiac and in all its pre-Copernican glory -- the golden sun traveling around an immobile Earth. Edward VI , Mary I and Elizabeth I all stayed at Hampton Court at times during their reigns, although none made and significant additions or alterations to the palace, as their father had. Parts of the Tudor palace were pulled down when construction began on a new building for William and Mary. The change in architecture styles is very marked as is the dramatic difference in the colors of the bricks. Events in Tudor History at Hampton Court In 1537, Jane Seymour gave birth to the future King Edward VI at Hampton court. The baby prince was christened in the magnificent Chapel Royal a few days later. Jane fell very ill after Edward's birth and died in the palace only two weeks after giving birth to the new heir.

Henry VIII spent three of his honeymoons at Hampton Court, as did his daughter Mary I when she married Philip of Spain . It was at Hampton Court that Henry VIII was told of the infidelity of Kathryn Howard , which would eventually lead to her arrest and execution (and according to some, why her ghost inhabits the Haunted Gallery.) Henry also married his sixth wife, Katherine Parr , in the Holyday or Queen's Closet at the Palace, adjoining the Chapel Royal. Discover A Full History Of Hampton Court Palace Through The Ages | Historic Royal Palaces A building history Hampton Court Palace from its humble medieval beginnings to the ‘grace-and-favour’ period and today. This is the story of two palaces: a Tudor palace, magnificently developed by Cardinal Wolsey and later Henry VIII, alongside a baroque palace built by William III and Mary II. A history of Hampton Court's development... Hampton Court Palace - Castles, Palaces and Fortresses Hampton Court Palace Hampton Court Palace is an English palace situated on the north bank of the River Thames, about 23 km upstream from central London.

In the building that survives, two main periods of work can be seen: the remains of the Tudor royal palace, begun by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey between 1514 and 1529 and completed by Henry VIII between 1529 and 1547; and the Baroque palace built for William and Mary between 1688 and 1702 by Christopher Wren. The palace has also been continually altered and repaired up to the present day. The Tudor part of the building is probably the most important surviving example of early Tudor domestic architecture in England, and the Wren building contains one of the finest collections of early 18th-century decorative arts in situ. Hampton Court Palace History Tudor palace The earliest buildings (now destroyed) on the site belonged to the Knights Hospitallers of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, although little is known about the nature of these buildings. The first important period of expansion began around 1500, when the Grand Prior of the Order was Thomas Docwra. A manor house of brick and stone was constructed within the original moated enclosure, incorporating the earlier buildings on the site.

Excavation has revealed the plan of this building, the courtyard of which is now partly defined by Clock Court. After 1500 the manor house was leased by Henry VII’s Lord Chamberlain, Giles, 1st Baron Daubenny, although Henry continued to have close connections with the property. The second major phase of expansion began in 1514, when Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey, took a lease on the manor house and the surrounding parkland. Wolsey’s principal works survive: Base Court, containing double and single lodgings opening off a gallery; the south range (which replaced an earlier south range), with its geometrical ribbed ceiling; the eastern kitchen (much extended by Henry VIII after 1529); and a chapel and cloister, also altered by the King. The staterooms, which were arranged after the French fashion, with the King’s lodgings on the principal floor, those of the Queen above, and Wolsey’s long gallery, which projected 100 m into the gardens laid out around the house, were later destroyed. Wolsey fell from favour in 1529, since when Hampton Court has remained the property of the Crown.

The subsequent works of Henry VIII did not differ significantly in style from those of his minister; both he and Wolsey built in red brick with stone dressings, the façades of the buildings articulated by bay windows and by turrets surmounted by lead cappings. The brickwork was generally painted and the heraldic carvings that crowned gables, turrets and cappings held ephemeral vanes and banners. Henry’s principal works, the royal lodgings (built on the site of the present Cloister Court), were later destroyed but his Great Hall (1532–4), with its hammerbeam roof and grotesque decorations, gives some idea of the scale and magnificence of his ideas. The other surviving works of this period are the kitchens, a low range of domestic buildings on the north side of the palace; the indoor tennis-court, which was converted into lodgings in the 17th century; the Prince’s Lodgings (built for the future Edward VI), sited on the north of Chapel Court; and the ceiling of the chapel, a deep-ribbed structure with antique cherubs clasping the pendants. The Hampton Court Palace was surrounded by elaborate gardens, beyond which stretched extensive parkland.

To the north were orchards and to the south a privy garden, pond garden and mount garden. On the west side of the palace was a tilt-yard. Several small, brick banqueting houses and viewing towers were built in the gardens. Although the plan of the royal lodgings is lost, it is clear that Henry’s important innovation was the construction of an entirely private wing to the east, in addition to the Queen’s and King’s sides that lay to the north and south respectively of the earlier inner court (destr.). Hampton Court Baroque palace After Henry VIII’s death in 1547, Hampton Court remained largely unaltered until the Restoration in 1660; in the 1670s Charles II built a new block of privy lodgings on the south-east corner of Henry VIII’s inner court, and a canal was dug on an east–west alignment, centered on the middle of the east front. Charles’s new lodgings did not survive long, however, since they were demolished with the rest of the inner court to make way for the Baroque palace of William and Mary.

The canal was retained, however, and became an important factor in the subsequent designs both ofWren’s new building and of William Talman’s gardens. William and Mary employed Wren to draw up plans for remodelling the old palace. Two of Wren’s early schemes survive; each involved demolishing the Tudor palace, retaining only the Great Hall as the centrepiece of an entrance court, with a court for offices behind and the royal apartments to the east. Both its plan and the surviving sketch of the elevations indicate that Wren’s ideas owed much to Louis Le Vau’s remodelled Louvre, Paris, which Wren had seen in 1666, a year after its completion. Possibly for reasons of speed, and possibly because William and Mary did not favour Wren’s idea, a more modest project replacing only the royal lodgings was undertaken. In plan, Wren’s Cloister Court is essentially a reorganization of the Tudor building. The disposition of accommodation—the King’s to the south, the Queen’s to the north and the privy lodgings to the east—is identical to Henry VIII’s scheme of the 1530s.

The elevations of Wren’s building screen this plan and bear little relation to it; they resemble the work of Jules Hardouin Mansart at Versailles, the flat, block-like quality of which they share. Wren’s elevations are richly decorated with dressings of Portland stone, which sit dazzlingly on the finely jointed scarlet brickwork of the façade. A low ground floor supports the principal floor, above which there is a mezzanine level and an attic. Building work, which began in 1688, came to a halt in 1694 once the shell of the structure had been constructed, owing to the death of Mary. When work resumed in 1699, after a fire had destroyed the principal royal palace at Whitehall, London, it was mostly the interior decoration that was undertaken. The staterooms are generally panelled in oak from floor to ceiling; some were hung with damask or tapestries. Most of the ceilings were originally left plain, although Antonio Verrio worked on those of the King’s staircase and dressing-room and, later, on that of the Queen’s drawing-room.

Lime-wood carvings by Grinling Gibbons adorned fireplaces and door surrounds; the decorative ironwork was undertaken by Jean Tijou. The decoration of the royal apartments continued under Queen Anne (1702–1714) and George I (1714–1727): James Thornhill undertook the redecoration of the chapel and the ceiling of the Queen’s bedchamber, and John Vanbrugh designed the rooms in the north-east corner of the Fountain Court for the Prince of Wales, later George I. It was not until 1735 that the Queen’s staircase was painted by William Kent. The original plan for the gardens had been to execute a parterre to a design by Daniel Marot I in the French style of André Le Nôtre. The gardens were eventually laid out, however, to designs prepared by William Talman and George London . The main elements of this plan included a new privy garden to the south, the Great Fountain Garden to the east and the wilderness and kitchen garden to the north.

The Fountain Garden was a vast semicircle, beyond which were three radiating avenues, each aligned with the central portico of Wren’s building to the west and with Charles II’s canal to the east. None of these gardens survives in its original form, nor is there any trace of the Thames-side Trianon planned by William Talman for the grounds. Hamptom Court Later work In 1732 the east side of Clock Court was rebuilt in a Gothic Revival style by William Kent, but this was the last major alteration to the palace; after 1760 it ceased to be used as a residence for the Court. For the next 200 years Hampton Court provided grace and favour residences for impoverished servants of the Crown. Many minor alterations were undertaken in this period for the convenience of the residents, but none seriously altered the 18th-century plan. In 1838 the state apartments were opened to the public, and these now display the Crown’s important collection of Renaissance paintings. This includes examples by Titian, Tintoretto and Mantegna (the Triumph of Caesar series), as well as by English 16th-century masters.

During the 19th and 20th centuries a series of restoration programmes, influenced by the prevailing philosophies of the time, was undertaken. In 1845 the chapel ceiling was restored with advice from A. W. N. Pugin; in 1910 the original moat on the west front, filled in during the 18th century, was redug. In 1986 most of the south wing of the Wren building was destroyed by fire, which led to a new programme of restoration, completed in 1993. Hampton Court Palace Visits Hampton Court Palace and Gardens is open for visits throughout the year, except on Christmas when it is closed between 24 -26 December. It is open on the 1st of January every year. What to see: The Hampton Court Palace and The Formal Gardens The Informal Gardens - (closed in 25 December) The Home Park - open every day The Chapel Royal - is closed on Sundays for weddings and events.

(except on August or when no event take place) The Hampton Court Maze BBC - History - Hampton Court: The Lost Palace Hampton Court: The Lost Palace By Jonathan Foyle Last updated 2011-03-29 Wolsey's Hampton Court was renovated by King Henry VIII, obscuring the original design. So what did the Cardinal's palace look like and did it have roots in the Italian Renaissance? Jonathan Foyle tells how he solved an architectural mystery. On this page Print this page A superlative palace Hampton Court Palace was England's most significant palace of the Tudor age. From 1515-c.1521, the Lord Chancellor of England and soon-to-be Cardinal, Thomas Wolsey, transformed a medieval manor (situated 13 miles southwest of London on the north bank of the River Thames) into a palace deemed superlative by contemporary observers. By 1529, the king had begun a process of rebuilding and remodelling which lasted at least ten years. The poet John Skelton knew it well and wrote that 'the king's court should have the excellence...

But Hampton Court hath pre-eminence!' Skelton offers us a tantalising first-hand glimpse of the magnificence of Wolsey's new palace, for there are no drawings of it and few written records of its construction remain. What's more, only four years after its initial completion, Henry VIII assumed occupancy. By 1529, the king had begun a process of rebuilding and remodelling which lasted at least ten years. As the Cardinal fell from favour and died, Henry transformed Wolsey's palace beyond recognition. Then William III and Mary II managed to rebuild half of the Tudor palace from 1689-94. Consequently, throughout the almost 500 years since Wolsey's occupation, it has enjoyed a long history of development which has heavily obscured its original form. Until recently, historians had little idea as to how much of Wolsey's original palace survived amongst Henry VIII's renovations, and so Wolsey's Hampton Court became the missing link of English architectural history.

Since the 19th-century, the famous Great Hall, which is the best surviving room of the Tudor state apartments, has been explained as the last medieval great hall of the English monarchy, one of Henry VIII's upgrades which suited the ultimate magnificence of a royal palace. But this modern view doesn't agree with Skelton's impression that it was 'pre-eminent' in Wolsey's day. So, what did Wolsey's palace look like? Was it as extraordinary as its contemporaries tell us? And was it England's last 'medieval' palace? Top The first breakthrough Studying a plan of Hampton Court Palace © In 1997 I began to study the palace's brick and stone walls in detail, comparing records and drawings to find out whether any clues may have been missed that would help to recreate Wolsey's lost palace. With an architect's eye, it became clear that some parts of the building were misaligned, suggesting they were built at different dates. On the other hand, there were some consistencies, notably the way most of the Tudor walls were built either in parallel or at right angles.

There seemed to be a discipline at work in the planning, but the exact meaning and shape of this proved elusive. ...I suddenly realised that the outside wall of Wolsey's surviving western courtyard (called 'Base Court') was perfectly square. A breakthrough came at Christmas 2000 - thanks to the antisocial habit of taking work home - this time, playing with compasses and a rule on a large plan of Hampton Court. As New Year approached, I suddenly realised that the outside wall of Wolsey's surviving western courtyard (called 'Base Court') was perfectly square. Scribing a circle around its corners, I found it to be part of a geometrical scheme of two giant squares side by side, each of which measures 327 feet. In each giant square was a series of rotated squares, like a nest, one within the next. This geometry was used to plan all the walls of the palace, and explained exactly why they were all parallel. The use of different geometries permeates the designs of medieval churches, and some castles, but not English great houses and palaces, which were concoctions of ranges and blocks around irregular courtyards. Besides, this geometry was doubly different, for it didn't stop at the buildings.

The two squares were repeated out into the gardens, setting out the banks of the moat that originally surrounded the palace. This precise means of organising an entire complex of buildings cannot be found in any English site before this time, but there are clear parallels for it in the designs of Italian Renaissance architects such as Filarete and Wolsey's contemporary, Leonardo da Vinci. Top The dig begins On the verge of discovering the kitchen © I needed to do some archaeological excavations because, if I could fill in the gaps in the plan by predicting lost parts of the palace, that would seal it: the original form of Wolsey's Hampton Court would be confirmed by hard evidence. So digs were planned to span two weeks and the pressure was on. I predicted we'd find the remains of Wolsey's original Great Hall, which I calculated would have been larger than Henry VIII's present one. Some scholars had suggested the oriel window might not be part of Henry VIII's work, but a remnant from an earlier hall. I agreed. In the first week, we found one of the buttresses of Wolsey's hall, which confirmed the theory beyond doubt...

In the first week, we found one of the buttresses of Wolsey's hall, which confirmed the theory beyond doubt, and provided the basis for a precise reconstruction. I also suspected there was a lost cloister between the hall and chapel, and there was just enough space for a site where we could search for one of its walls. This turned out to be hopelessly disturbed: a total mess of drainpipes and culverts. There was an interesting trench of broken-up Tudor bricks running exactly along the line we were investigating, but this had to remain a tantalising sum of evidence. The proof of the geometry and other remains had to suffice. I also thought there would be the remains of a long-demolished kitchen to the north of the hall. Though its eastern kitchen wall turned out to have been destroyed by a later drain, we found the western wall with a floor of yellow and green tiles inside and a Tudor lead water-pipe beneath, which had once supplied Wolsey's cooks. Top Renaissance design? We had good evidence to back up the shape of the original palace and to confirm the presence of its unusual geometry.

This was not going to reattribute the design of Hampton Court to an Italian architect; after all, its 'Gothic' windows look typically English and their details relate them to other contemporary buildings in Westminster by royal master masons. So the design must have been drawn up by one of them. Received wisdom says that these men designed 'Gothic' and 'medieval' buildings, largely on the basis of the style of pointed windows. 'Renaissance' architecture in England, with full classical ornament, isn't supposed to appear until the late 1540s. ...I wondered if an English designer could have been guided by Renaissance design theories from as early as 1515. To test this, it's worth asking three questions: do we classify Tudor architecture in the same way its creators understood it; does enough remain for such a conclusion to be thorough and reliable; and what if we haven't been looking in the right places for clues to their methods and beliefs? As I continued to read and research, I wondered if an English designer could have been guided by Renaissance design theories from as early as 1515.

It became clear that with a patron like Wolsey, the answer lies somewhere between 'more than probably' and 'yes'. As a precocious scholar who was fluent in Latin and international affairs, he was recognised and first promoted as a churchman of European stature in 1513 by Pope Leo X. Leo was a member of the Medici family from Florence who fostered the classical learning that formed the basis for Renaissance artistic thought. Leo X employed the great artists of the High Renaissance: Raphael, Leonardo, Michelangelo, who were all working to emphasise the power of the Catholic church through their philosophical artworks. Whilst there is no evidence that Wolsey ever went to Rome, there was a steady stream of Roman messengers, ambassadors and papal representatives coming to Wolsey in England. There were Italian sculptors coming to Wolsey, too. Looking at Wolsey's terracotta busts of Roman emperors in the central courtyard by Giovanni da Maiano, I wondered whether some advice from Rome was given to Wolsey to guide - not just the ornament - but the whole design of his palace. I couldn't prove it. I needed to look closely at the Italian palaces, to see if they were similar in planning, accommodation and decoration.

Ideally, I'd need to find a document that could have offered Wolsey instruction. Top The second breakthrough I made a trip to Florence and Rome, and found a number of parallels for the revised Hampton Court: rectilinear planning, elevated apartments, Roman sculptural subjects, classical ornament. ...chapter two [of 'De Cardinalatu'] describes how to design the ideal cardinal's palace... Then, another breakthrough: in a library in Florence I read an original copy of Paolo Cortese's 'De Cardinalatu', published in 1510. It is a compendium of how to be a cardinal of the High Renaissance, and chapter two describes how to design the ideal cardinal's palace. It explained all of Hampton Court's idiosyncrasies in one fell swoop, including the Roman emperors in the central courtyard. If Wolsey had created the same unprecedented series of motifs at Hampton Court by accident, the coincidence would be even more remarkable. We decided it would be wonderful to reconstruct Wolsey's palace using computer graphics. One week later, I'd produced a 25ft-roll of line drawings to send to the graphics company.

The end product was more than worth all the hard work, as the sequences brilliantly recreated a long-lost experience and revealed exactly why Wolsey's contemporaries thought the palace was so amazing. Today, Hampton Court retains the capacity to amaze: with six acres of buildings spanning 500 years, there's always so much more to learn, explain and enjoy about the palace. Hampton Court is still one of the 'pre-eminent' wonders of Europe, half a millennium after its initial construction. Find out more Books The History of the King's Works: The Middle Ages, vol.1 by R A Brown, H M Colvin and A J Taylor, edited by H M Colvin (1963) Architecture of the Renaissance by Bertrand Jestaz (Thames & Hudson, 1996) Medieval Palaces by Graham Keevil (Tempus Publishing, 2000) Hampton Court Palace by Matthew Sturgis (Channel 4 Books, 2001) The English Medieval House by M Wood (1965) Top About the author Jonathan Foyle is assistant curator of historic buildings at Historic Royal Palaces.

He has worked at Canterbury Cathedral and teaches architectural and cultural history at Cambridge University's Department for Continuing Education and the university's International Summer Schools. 5 out of 5 stars Time Out says 5 out of 5 stars Frolic in the maze where kings and queens once played then see where Henry VIII ate his scoff To cut a long story short, Hampton Court Palace was originally built by Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey, as a showy country retreat to host state visits. Unfortunately, he did such a grand job of out-blinging the king, that Henry pretty much seized Hampton Court Palace from Wolsey as compensation when the Pope wouldn’t let him divorce his wife Catherine of Aragon so he could shack up with Anne Boleyn. Thus, Hampton Court Palace goes down in history as the playground of the Tudors and today, some of the most inspiring parts of the Palace to visit are the sixteenth-century quarters that still stand proud. These include the extensive kitchens, which once had to prepare two meals a day for a court of 600 people.

With spice rooms and cellars for the king’s treats (Italian olives, French wines, locally caught game) they’re a bit like a modern Shoreditch deli run on an army canteen scale. To get a real feel for what life was like back then, time your visit to coincide with one of the costumed ‘encounters with the past’, where actors dress up and play out typical scenes around the palace, including a Tudor Kitchens encounter and scenes with Henry’s courtiers. There are talks and tours you can join for free, too (check the website for dates). Even after the Tudors had run out of heirs, royal life at Hampton Court Palace continued. Shakespeare would play a Christmas season of plays for King James here with a little band of actors, and later, William and Mary and the Georgian kings built their own additions to the Palace. These include the grand staircase adorned with an Italian fresco depicting William as the hero Alexander and the special rooms where George I installed his own private chocolatier so he could have drinking chocolate when he pleased.

From the Tudor indoor tennis court to the Royal Maze, from the King’s private loo to the brand new Magic Garden adventure playground (inspired by the medieval joust), Hampton Court Palace is several different visits in one place. If you love history and art, buy the ticket for the Palace and the Gardens, or if you have children with you who just want to run around, buy the Magic Garden and Maze ticket. And while you decide what you want to do, wander the rose gardens for free and enjoy a coffee in the Tiltyard Café. By: Laura Lee Davies Hampton Court Palace | Historic Royal Palaces Historic Royal Palaces Hampton Court Palace A building history It is perhaps easiest to think of Hampton Court as the ‘story of two palaces’: a Tudor palace, established by Cardinal Wolsey and made even more magnificent by Henry VIII, alongside a baroque palace built by William III and Mary II. The Royal Tennis Court – Hampton Court Palace · south front Hampton Court Palace · main entrance Hampton Court Palace · Tudor garden gilded heraldic beast Pro shop · real tennis balls History The first tennis court at Hampton Court was built for Cardinal Wolsey , between 1526 and 1529.

As a young man, Henry VIII was a keen and talented tennis player, who spent hours on court. His second wife Anne Boleyn was gambling on a game of tennis when she was arrested to be taken to the Tower of London . She even complained that she couldn't collect her winnings! There has been a tennis court on this site since 1625, when this one was built for Charles I . Three of the walls of the court in use today are 17th-century, with the other being Cardinal Wolsey's original. One of the first English guides to tennis in 1553 claimed that 'this game has been created for a good purpose, namely, to keep our bodies healthy, to make our young men stronger and more robust, chasing idleness, virtue's mortal enemy, far from them and thus making them of a stronger and more excellent nature'. The Game The game of real tennis is played in a court divided between the service end and the hazard end. 'Hazards' include the grille window and the winning gallery. Players at the hazard end lost the point if the hazards are hit. However, the game is safer.

Since the 1500s the balls have been made with leather and filled with soft stuffing, which included animal and human hair. Before this, balls were more like ammunition, filled with clay, sand and powdered egg shells and could take out an opponent with a single hit! Henry VIII would recognise a game of real tennis if he saw it today: it has changed little since he enjoyed it. The equipment is still hand-made on the tennis court site, as it has been for nearly 500 years. Although the game looks like a strange mixture of tennis and squash, the techniques, strategies and rules are both more difficult and more complex than those of the modern derivatives. Despite this complexity, the game can be played at various speeds allowing for players of all ages and abilities to play. Except at the very highest levels of the professional game - the World Championship Challenge - both singles and doubles matches are mixed gender. The Club Today the court is home to a thriving club with over 500 members, and is open and in use from 7am to 11pm every day of the year, except Christmas Day.

The Royal Tennis Court is one of fewer than fifty real tennis courts in the world, and one of the few courts in the world where the public can watch this intriguing sport. Comfortable Club Rooms , including a dining room with kitchen facilities and a secluded walled garden, are available to members and guests. The club rooms are available for hire by members. The club has an active policy of arranging a number of social events throughout the year. Day-to-day tennis activities at the club are arranged by the Head Professional, Nick Wood, and his assistants . The professional team arranges a wide range of tournaments to suit all playing standards. New members are always welcome, particularly youngsters ages 12 to 21, so why not give the professionals a call and arrange a lesson to try the game. Henry VIII · The Tudor champ As a young man, Henry was athletic, graceful and loved all sports, especially tennis. Never one to shy away from impressing the ladies, Henry was probably well aware that he cut a fine figure in his flowing white silk shirt. The Venetian Ambassador at court, Sebastian Giustiniani , was also impressed, describing the King in 1519 as 'much handsomer than the King of France.

It was the prettiest thing in the world to see him play; his fair skin glowing through a shirt of the finest texture.' However, Henry lost a huge amount of money gambling on the outcomes of his own and other matches. Edward Hall , a 16th-century chronicler recorded in 1510-11 that: 'The King was much enticed to play at tennis and at dice, which appetite, certain crafty persons about him perceiving, brought in.' Elizabeth I · Her Majesty's pleasure Elizabeth I was a keen spectator and she ensured that the courts were well maintained. Her courtiers vied for her approval, and passions often ran high in matches. During one game between her favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester , and his rival Lord Norfolk, Dudley took a cloth from the Queen's hand to wipe his sweaty brow. Incensed by this public show of intimacy Norfolk threatened to strike Dudley in the face with his racquet. The ensuing commotion upset the Queen, who ruled that Norfolk was to blame for overreacting! Charles I · A winning style Charles I was an enthusiastic player, and probably the most talented of the British tennis-playing monarchs.

The walls of his new court, built in 1625, are those that still make up the court as it stands today. The King had special tennis suits made, designed to look like fashionable doublets and breeches. They were brightly coloured and made from silk, satin and velvet, and often trimmed with silk lace in an intricate braid. These were worn with special 'tennis stockings' and tennis shoes. Charles II · Bigger and better Charles II spent much of his time in exile in France playing tennis. When he returned to Hampton Court Palace in 1660 he ordered significant improvements to be made to his father's court, including reconstructing the roof. Charles also had special suits, stockings and shoes made for tennis in the latest fashions to impress his onlookers. James II · Stuart -vs- Stuart As a prince, James (later James II) often played against his elder brother King Charles II. After the Restoration in 1660, James was granted his own apartments at Hampton Court Palace, so he was on hand if Charles felt like a game or two.

Frederick, Duke of York · The passionate gambler ' The Grand Old Duke of York ,' son of George III , was a tennis fanatic. His daily games prompted the Times newspaper to comment that he was neglecting his military duties: 'The tennis court now takes up more of the Duke of York's time than the Parade; His Royal Highness paying more respect to the top of the ball that the step of the soldier.' The Duke loved to gamble on tennis matches and in one year he ran up a debt of over £60,000. Frederick's demeanour on court was described as too hot and passionate'; and that he 'leaps over the net with great agility'. When he played he wore a 'dress of flannel - stockings, breeches and shirt, all joined together which is put off and on in a moment'. Prince Albert · The unconvinced prince Queen Victoria wrote in her journal how ' Albert went to Hampton Court to play at tennis' in 1848. A brass plaque was fixed to a locker set aside for his exclusive use, although it seems he didn't warm to the sport at Hampton Court and never returned. The plaque remains in the changing room to this day.

Sir Spencer Cecil Brabazon Ponsonby-Fane , the splendidly named President of the Royal Tennis Court club from 1896-1915, remarked of the contents: 'Some flannel garments and a racquet remained fr many years, until moth and corruption eventually consumed them.' The Earl of Wessex · A modern royal Today the club and court are still enjoyed by members of The Royal Family . The Earl of Wessex is a regular player on this court. Social: Hampton Court Various views of the Base Court, Clock Court and Fountain Court Further views of the Fountain and Clock courts, and one of the minor kitchen courts Chapel Court and one of the kitchen courts Clock Court and Base Court, including a view from one of Henry VIII's state rooms The bulk of the palace is built around the three internal courtyards of Base Court, Clock Court and Fountain Court, and the wings that surround these internal spaces comprise the various state apartments of Henry VIII, William III, Mary and the so-called Georgian Rooms, as well as lesser complexes such as the Cumberland Rooms and Wolsey Rooms. Wren's cloistered Fountain Court is perhaps the grandest.

Off to the north side of the palace stand the Chapel, the Tudor Kitchens and various outhouses, and these surround further internal spaces of which the most handsome is the Chapel Court. Formal (south) gardens and Thames frontage Privy Gardens Knot Garden and Pond Gardens Knot garden, pergola and Tijou screen The Privy gardens To the south of the palace are the private gardens, the most formal of which is William III's Privy Garden and which complements Wren's massive south front. The garden is much as William would have seen it, excepting that there wasn't a mobile phone mast on the Surrey bank of the Thames in those days. The Thames itself is fronted by an 18th century wrought iron screen designed by Jean Tijou. Further west are the Box Garden, Pond Gardens and Lower Orangery, which front the outer walls of the Wolsey rooms. East gardens and water features The East or Great Fountain gardens Further views of the Great Fountain gardens William III laid out these gardens, dominated by their semicircular pattern of lakes and fountains, around the turn of the 18th century.

Avenues of yew trees radiate from the main fountain outside the east gate of the Fountain Court, the rest of the gardens being laid out as lawns and flower beds. Stretching further to the east is the Long Water, a lake constructed for Charles II in 1660 and one of the few features of the surrounding park. North (informal) gardens The "Wilderness", tea lawns and informal gardens Laying north of the kitchens, workshops, indoor sports facilities, private apartments, offices and other non-public areas of the palace are the Northern gardens, laid out in a hotchpotch of styles but generally far less formal than those to the south and east of the palace. Among the northern gardens are the "wilderness", rather an area of mixed hedges, herbaceous borders and tree cover than a wildlife area; the Tiltyard, an area originally used for jousting and now divided up into rose gardens, tennis courts and a cafeteria; and the world famous Maze (not pictured here), a complex pattern of paths enclosed by hedges and laid out in 1720. Adjacent to the maze is the north gate, opposite which is the huge but relatively unknown Bushy Park.

Gardens north of the Palace North gardens and the North Gate Hampton Court Park Deer and open grassland Outwith the formal Palace gardens is Hampton Court park, or Home Park, an area of nearly 3 square km comprising little other than grassland and the odd clump of trees. The park is walled and has only two entrances, one from the Palace itself and one at Hampton Wick in the opposite corner. The park has a golf course on its southeastern corner and boasts one lodge (enclosed private cottage) slap in the centre of the park; apart from these, and the Long Water, the park has no facilities whatsoever. A herd of deer roam free, a legacy of the park's former use as a Royal hunting ground. The lack of both access and facilities explains the scarcity of people in the park - despite it being a public open space you will rarely see another human soul within the grounds. The rightmost image above is interesting, not for what it shows, but for what it doesn't - there is absolutely nothing to see except an expanse of rough grass and some distant trees. And this is part of London. Back to Richmond index page Links:

Question: Who had Hampton Court Palace built?
Answer: CARDINAL WOLSEY